The body blows just keep coming for
Apple and its iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 was unveiled to much fanfare at
beginning of June, but once customers started receiving their phones,
problems began being reported.

Earlier this month during lab testing, Consumer Reports stated that "there's
no reason, at least yet, to forgo buying an iPhone 4 over its
reception concerns."

Today, however, it is reversing its
stance after
testing more phones in a radio frequency (RF) isolation chamber. Consumer Reports' findings
pretty much mirror what everyone has been stating for the past
several weeks with regards to the iPhone
4's reception woes. "When your finger or hand touches a spot
on the phone's lower left side—an easy thing, especially for
lefties—the signal can significantly degrade enough to cause you to
lose your connection altogether if you're in an area with a weak
signal," said Mike Gikas on the Consumer Reports blog. "Due
to this problem, we can't recommend the iPhone 4."

Gikas goes on to state that an
unsightly fix for the reception issue is to put a piece of tape over
the gap between the Wi-Fi/Bluetooth and cellular radio antennas.

The iPhone 4 was rated highly due to
its sharp Retina display, Face Time video chat, and its stellar
battery life, but the lingering reception issues mean that the phone
won't be getting the recommended rating.

"Apple needs to come up with a
permanent—and free—fix for the antenna problem before we can
recommend the iPhone 4," Gikas concluded.